by Trisha Telep
“No, you can’t.”
“I assure you –”
“I’m a jinx!” she repeated furiously. “My magic doesn’t work like most people’s! I’m not susceptible to suggestions, vampiric or otherwise. Now hit me, goddammit!”
“No,” he said, and kissed her.
It was an instinctive reaction, something unexpected that might shock her enough to stop this without actually hurting her. But then she shuddered slightly and her mouth opened under his and her hands clenched on his shoulders and somehow he was kissing her savagely, this woman he barely knew who might be the last person he ever touched, the last warmth he ever felt.
Sara’s heartbeat was hard against his hand, the urgent thump resonating through his body. They stumbled back into the cavern wall, Tomas cradling the back of her head to save her from a concussion, trying to remember to be careful when his hands were so hungry that he couldn’t hold them still. Sara was shaking almost as hard as the room and, for a moment, it was the most natural thing in the world to be kissing her desperately, both hands locked around her head now, the long hair coming loose under his fingers, while the mountain threatened to fall in around them and death lay waiting, sure and inevitable, only moments away.
Tomas hadn’t realized fully until that moment how certain he’d become that he wouldn’t survive the night. He felt the knowledge settle into him now along with her breath, and instead of sadness or regret, he found himself just overwhelmingly grateful that, if this was the end, at least he wasn’t facing it alone. It was, all things considered, more than he deserved.
And then Sara pulled away, her eyes wide open, shocked and angry, and struck him hard across the mouth. It was enough to rock his head back, to make him taste the rich, metallic tang of his own blood. He wiped a smear off his lip with a thumb as she pushed at him, hard.
“I said hit me! Are you deaf?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but launched herself towards him, fist clenching.
Tomas caught her hands, effortlessly holding her away from him. “Vampires don’t get in fights with humans unless we intend to kill. You’re too vulnerable, too easily broken.”
Another rock hit the floor, hard enough to send bones and debris flying. Sara looked around wildly. “If you don’t we’ll both be broken! Nothing else works!”
He grabbed her by the hips, swinging her against the wall, slamming her backwards into it. Startled out of fighting for a moment, she just stood there, panting and staring up at him as he pressed against her.
“If I misjudge, there will be no one to stop this hillside from erupting just as the cemetery did. You’ll be unconscious or worse, and we’ll both die – as will your brother.
His hands were busy as he spoke and, with a sharp tug on the hem of her blouse, he sent buttons flying. By the time he’d pushed the cloth out of the way, getting his fingers on the living warmth beneath, her nipples had grown tight and pebbly and she was gasping, her hands fisted in his shirt. But she wasn’t pushing him off. She was kissing him brutally, lips and teeth savage, pressing hard against his body while her hands clawed at his back.
“Are you distracted yet?” he breathed, as she ripped open his shirt, pushing his undershirt up to his neck and biting at a nipple.
“I’ll let you know,” she said roughly, dragging their lips together again.
Her mouth tasted of the sharp sweet tang of mescal, or maybe that was him. Her lips were sweet, but her body was shaking and her eyes were darting everywhere as if certain this wasn’t going to work. And it wasn’t, if he couldn’t get her mind off the room and onto him – and keep it there. The room was coming down in chunks around them and the only thing that kept running through his mind was that it would be truly typical to come 1,000 miles to die in some deserted ante-room.
He was breathing hard, adrenaline pumping through him as he managed to get a hand between them. He dipped his head for another kiss, hands slipping away from hot, damp skin to tug impatiently at the button on her jeans, to work at the zipper. He pushed the maddeningly tight material down her thighs, his hand clenched on the soft flesh of her hip, rounded and warm for his palm. He pulled her closer, fixed the angle between them and pushed into her.
Her legs wrapped around his thighs, clenching as he began moving. He’d been careful because he hadn’t prepared her, but she gasped out. “I won’t break,” her voice low and rough, and he began thrusting hard and fast, the way his body craved. His only concession to her comfort was his fingers working between her thighs roughly.
Within moments she was shuddering, her breath fracturing into harsh, quick gasps, panting, “Harder, damn you!”
“Make me,” he growled.
In one quick movement she shoved him back, her foot behind his, tripping him, sending them both falling to the floor and driving herself onto him. Tomas barely noticed the hard floor or the pottery shard that was gouging him in the back or the unstable ceiling hanging above him. He was too busy watching her face. He kept his hands on her hips. Guiding her, but not giving in to her gasped commands. Instead, he deliberately slowed down, then abruptly stopped, waiting.
“Tomas!”
He ignored her, even though she wouldn’t stop squirming, pushing the jagged pot shard further between his shoulder blades. She shifted, pulling back enough to rip open his shirt, to rain biting kisses all along his neck, to lick the hollow of his collarbone and mouth, his shoulders. Tomas’ hands scrabbled desperately at the rubble beneath him, but he didn’t move. He just lay there and took it, amazed at how much he needed this, until she let out a frustrated scream and raked her nails down his chest. “Move, damn it!”
He just stared up at her, at her glittering eyes and sweat-drenched, dusty hair, her blouse open and her jeans around her knees, giving him a view of the dark stain of his hands against the pale skin of her hips. He wondered how he’d ever thought her less than stunning. She glared at him and then pulled further back, letting him almost slide out of her, then suddenly forcing herself back onto him. She did it again and Tomas bit back a groan, but he held himself completely still.
“Some help here!” she demanded, and did something with her hips that made his eyes roll back into his head.
He slid his hands down the curve of her back and tightened them on her slim waist. He could feel the tremors in his frame the longer he held on and knew he’d soon have no choice except to move. And she knew it, too – she was laughing when he finally gave in, an exultant sound that ran like fire through his veins. He let her have her moment of triumph, before suddenly stopping once more. It took her a second to notice, then she stared down at him, momentarily speechless.
“That’s inhuman!” she finally hissed.
He grinned. “So am I.”
She wrapped her hands around his tie and jerked him upwards, the new angle forcing a moan out of them both. “Finish this or I swear –”
Tomas was moving before she completed the sentence, ignoring caution this time, fast and furious, glad that he didn’t need to breathe because she hadn’t let go of the tie. And then her hips were jerking in a way that was making it hard for him to focus, her gasps loud in his ears, her body’s pleasure doubling his own. He felt her shudder, her release and the clenching of her body triggered his, making them both groan deep in the back of their throats – and a great mess of pebbles and dust poured out of the ceiling.
It took Tomas a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t trapped beneath a ton of dirt and rubble, that this wasn’t a cave-in, just the result of one final tremor. He dug himself out to find Sara staring about the room, which was, surprisingly, mostly still intact. It was also blessedly quiet.
Those hazel eyes came back to rest on him and she smiled a little crookedly, teeth a shock of white in her dirty face. “OK. I guess that method works too.”
Instead of having to fight their way to the centre of the complex as Tomas had expected, their path was unobstructed, the halls echoing, silent and empty except for the carved faces of long-forgotten god
s staring down from the walls and lintels. That was more than strange – it was unprecedented. And very bad. Tomas had always known that his only real chance was that he knew this place, and its master, better than anyone. But nothing had gone as planned all night, and he honestly didn’t know what to expect when they finally made it to the huge natural cave that Alejandro used as an audience hall.
He brought them in through a little-known side tunnel that let out onto a set of steps about a storey above the cave floor. There were guards at the entrance, finally, who Tomas dealt with by simply ordering them to sleep. He was a first level master: he hadn’t been worried about them. But the creature sprawled on the throne-like chair at the head of the room was first-level also, and far older than he.
As usual, Alejandro was dressed like a Spanish nobleman of the conquest period, which he’d once been. He didn’t look like a monster, with an attractive florid face and bright, intelligent black eyes. But then, the worst ones never did. Seeing that face again brought a sudden, miserable lurch, a shuddering memory of centuries of heartbreak and horror and nauseating fear. Tomas had to clutch at the door jamb, feeling the rock crumbling beneath his fingers, to keep silent.
Nobody else said anything either. Tomas had warned them that even a whispered word was likely to be overheard, as beyond the excellent acoustics of the room itself was the small factor of vampire hearing. So Sara was quiet as they surveyed the scene spread below, although her face was eloquent.
Tomas now knew why they hadn’t met anyone on the way. The prisoners should have been downstairs, the vampires getting ready to disperse throughout the property for the hunt. Instead, the entire cavernous space was crammed with people, mostly human, but with a ring of vampires circling them. It took Tomas a moment to realize what was happening, because none of this was normal.
A young Mexican man stumbled forwards pushed by one of the guards, to land near a small group of others. There were five bodies lined up in a row at the front of the hall, their throats slashed down to the bone, white gleaming through red flesh in wide, jagged lines. The floor there was not the chipped, angular surface of the outer halls, but worn to a smooth, concave trough by generations of feet. A small stone altar had been found when Alejandro moved in, leading to speculation that this had once been the site of sacred rights. Blood from the corpses had run down the central depression, looking like a long finger pointing the way to the altar and to his throne above it. Standing to the side of the carnage were two men and a woman, each human, with expressions ranging form dazed to disbelieving to horror struck.
Tomas felt a hand grip his arm, and looked down to see Sara clutching it hard enough to bruise had he been human.
“To the right,” she mouthed, and nodded to indicate the tall, lanky young man at the end of the line-up, his face dead white and smeared with blood. He looked like he’d put up a struggle, but there was nothing of that spirit visible now. He was swaying slightly on his feet, mouth slack, and blinking slowly behind his glasses like a sleepy owl. Shock, or close to it, Tomas thought; so much for hoping he could run on cue.
“You want to save the life of this man?” Alejandro asked, addressing the young brunette on the other end of the line. “Because you know what I want.”
Instead of answering, the young woman giggled, a nervous, high pitched sound that warned of incipient hysteria. It reverberated oddly in the high vault of the room; laughter wasn’t a sound that lived here, and the echoes came back with sharp, mocking edges. She stopped, cutting it off abruptly.
“We told you already,” the older man next to her said, his salt and pepper beard quivering more than his voice. “What you ask is impossible. Even if we could create that many – which we can’t – keeping them under control would be –”
“They’re zombies!” Alejandro screamed, cutting him off. He gestured savagely to a row of odd-looking spectators assembled behind his throne. The missing kings looked out with dead, empty eyes onto the crowd, assembled once more in an audience chamber, as if to give their advice. “They’ll have no more mind than these! A child could control them!”
“If the child had multiple souls,” the older man snapped. “We’re necromancers, not puppeteers! To raise a zombie, we must lend it part of our soul – that is the only way to direct it. I can create one or two zombies at a time – no more. An especially gifted bokor might be able to manage as many as five, but a whole army?” He gestured to the mass of waiting humans. They were there, Tomas realized with a sickening lurch, to be turned into more troops for Alejandro’s growing megalomania. Troops who wouldn’t question his orders, wouldn’t challenge him as Tomas and a few others had dared. “You ask the impossible!”
Alejandro didn’t move, didn’t blink, but Tomas knew what was coming. A flick of the guard’s wrist broke the man’s neck, his body tumbling to the floor to join the others. The young man who had been intended as the next victim fainted and was dragged back into the waiting throng.
“Do it,” Alejandro told the girl, who was staring at the body of her fallen colleague as it was arranged in line with the others. “Now.”
She transferred her stare to the creature on the throne, and Tomas knew she couldn’t do as he asked. It was written on her face, along with horror and revulsion and abject terror. She was shaking, just standing there, and he doubted she could con concentrate enough to rmember her name at this point. Much less manage a complex spell.
“She’ll fail,” Sara said suddenly, “and my brother will be next.”
Tomas looked around frantically for any sign that she had been overheard, but there was nothing. The closest vamps, two guards a few feet away at the bottom of the stairs, never even flinched. They were watching one of the captives who was busy vomiting up his dinner, the gasping, wet sounds followed by painful dry gasps. Tomas glanced at Sara, who nodded at the fanatic. He was clutching his bones and murmuring something with a distracted air, as if everything below wasn’t enough to hold his attention.
“Silence shield,” Sara explained. “Have any suggestions, or do you just want to wing it?”
Forkface had taken off his bulging pack and was systematically tucking stoppered vials into his already weapons-filled belt. It was pretty obvious how he was voting. Too bad they’d all be dead within half a minute of an attack.
“This is Alejandro’s power base,” he said, struggling to explain in terms a human could understand. “In addition to his own, he can draw power from every vampire in the room. A frontal assault will not be successful.”
“Any idea what will?”
Tomas’ eyes were on the woman necromancer, who was crying and chanting at the same time, with theatrically raised arms but no discernable effect on any of the bodies. “Can he do a spell to allow you to move through the crowd unseen?” Tomas nodded at the fanatic.
“The best he can do in full light is a shadow spell to make us less obvious. It works on humans by redirecting their attention away from us. But I don’t know what effect it will have on vamps.” She glanced at her colleague, who was still muttering to himself but was now staring at an old inscription in the rock. She kicked him.
“Yes, yes. Will not work on master-level, but all else, yes.”
Tomas nodded. “I’ll distract Alejandro. While he is occupied with me, slip through the crowd and get your brother.”
“That won’t help everyone else.”
“If I can defeat him, his position will devolve onto me and they’ll be safe.” But the odds were a lot less in his favour than he’d hoped. Catching Alejandro somewhere in the tunnels or the jungle, alone except for a few of his closest attendants he might have stood a chance. But nowhere in his plans had he figured on anything like this.
His voice must have reflected some of his doubt, because Sara narrowed her eyes. “And if you can’t?”
“Once they see me, the court will likely have eyes for nothing else. Get as many people out as you can while they are distracted.”
“Distracted killing you,
you mean. Bullshit.”
“I came here knowing this was the likely the outcome.”
“Another little thing you forgot to mention. We’re gonna have to work on our communication.”
Tomas decided he couldn’t waste more time arguing. The woman necromancer had failed and Alejandro’s power was boiling through the room, hot on his neck. He was furious. And when he lost his temper, people died – a lot of them. It would be perfectly within character for him to simply order every human in the room put to death. As if in response to Tomas’ thoughts, the guard behind the woman started forwards, hand raised.
Tomas was grateful for vampiric speed, which allowed him to reach her before the guard could snap her neck. He caught the vamp’s arm, but needn’t have bothered. The room had frozen.
“Tomas.” The voice was the one he remembered, echoing inside his head like cool silver, but crawling under his skin like something alive. However, the power behind it, the force compelling him to do Alejandro’s will, was gone. For the first time, Tomas had reason to be grateful for his current master. As much as he hated the man, Louis-Cesar’s ownership ensured that Alejandro’s unspoken command exerted no more pull than that of any other first-level master. A rank he currently shared.
Tomas opened his hand and the guard retreated in an undignified scramble. The rest of the court was moving closer, not attacking, yet, but on high alert. No one had any doubts about why he was here.
Apparently, neither did Alejandro, because the moment Tomas made a move in his direction, a strong force pushed against him, like a hundred invisible hands holding him back. Make that 200, he thought, glancing about at the family he’d once called his own. The fifteen feet to the bottom of the stairs felt like miles; he had to fight for every inch with eyes burning into his spine like acid and a thick, roiling nausea in his gut. He had a moment of vertigo, swaying on his feet like a drunk trying to dance, and someone laughed, high and cold and mocking. It wasn’t Alejandro. His eyes were glittering dangerously and he’d lost the faintly amused smile that was his usual armour.
